


tall clean glass

by thetalkingcrocus



Series: Hannibal Daemon AU [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Canon Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Episode Related, Episode Remix, Episode: s01e01 Apéritif, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 01:03:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15546177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetalkingcrocus/pseuds/thetalkingcrocus
Summary: The Dust is always the worst part of any crime scene. It doesn’t matter how many classes on forensics and Rusakov particles or the origins of daemons someone took, there was a deep and visceral horror at seeing the bodies, absent of their daemons, swirled instead with glittering gold.(Apéritif, with daemons)





	tall clean glass

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to what is the first in what may be a very long AU! I've included a little daemon primer in the end notes, so feel free to reference that if you're not familiar with this trope. I hope you enjoy!

> The garter snake passed lazily through the tall yellow-headed sourgrass  
> There was cold, clear water in a tall, clean glass  
> The sunlight hit the sides and it came through the water tilted  
> I saw the condensation on your hand  
> I could feel the glaciers melting

The Mountain Goats, Song _for an Old Friend_

* * *

 

The Dust is always the worst part of any crime scene. It doesn’t matter how many classes on forensics and Rusakov particles or the origins of daemons someone took, there was a deep and visceral horror at seeing the bodies, absent of their daemons, swirled instead with glittering gold. Everyone handled it differently, although it wasn’t uncommon to see those entering a crime scene lay a hand on their daemon for comfort. Will didn’t.

 

He felt the amplified unease from all the sets of humans and daemons, took a deep breath, and reached his consciousness out to Delilah, closing his eyes to focus on their shared mind. He could feel her quiet shape in his breast pocket, separated from his own skin and a part of him still. He felt the prickle of her connection with him, and together, they dialed the time back. With each heartbeat the blood receded, the victim rose. Gold dust knitted itself into a medium animal crouched at the woman’s feet- a raccoon, they knew from the report.

 

He slipped into the killer’s mind like cool water, and felt his daemon’s presence behind him instead of in his pocket. Even he could not detect the form of the killer- his design wasn’t all of him, but his daemon’s shape would be.

 

Back in his lecture hall, he squinted into the crowd of students as he gave them their assignment for the week. Delilah remained passive, tucked in a shallow tank built in to the lecture desk that would keep her toxic skin moist. As he gathered his notes and scooped up his daemon, he returned the lecture podium to its standard state, draining the tank and extending the perch for the following professor, a short haired woman in her 40s with a pretty cardinal daemon, as an afterthought. He was wrapped up enough in his thoughts that it was Delilah who pointed out the imposing figures approaching him.

 

“Will,” she whispered, out loud, because he’d been ignoring her mental nudges for several seconds, “we have visitors.”   
  
Will glanced up, shoving his glasses down his nose and peering over them to take in the person coming toward them.   
  
Tall, broad, and strong, walking like he owned the place, with a striking antelope loping at his side, tossing her horned head and flicking her ears impatiently.

 

“Special Agent Jack Crawford, of Cassandra. We lead the behavioral science unit.”

 

“We’ve met.”

 

Jack smiles and lays a hand on his daemon’s horn, “I know. We had a disagreement at the opening of the museum.”   
  
“Evil minds museum, Jack? With reptile daemons on the poster? It’s a little… cliché.”   
  
Jack conceded the point with a nod, “Where is your daemon, Will?”   
  
Will felt himself bristling at the question, but nonetheless didn’t prevent Delilah from crawling out of his pocket and up to his shoulder. He was sure Jack would notice she still wasn’t touching his skin.

 

“A salamander, right?”

 

“ _Taricha granulosa_. Rough-skinned newt.”

 

“An indicator species,” Jack mused, “so sensitive to its environment that it can be used as a measure of the health of the ecosystem around it. Your empathy?”

 

Will smiled tensely, feeling Delilah’s eyes on the antelope daemon. “I – We can empathize with anybody. An active imagination.”   
  
Jack inclined his head, a gesture mirrored by the roan antelope at his side. “Can we borrow your imagination?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Although the human victims are enough alike to be sisters if not copies, their daemons are nothing alike. In the class pictures pinned to the wall, Will identified on sight a cotton topped tamarin, a house finch, a tapir, an Irish wolfhound, a tiny jewel-bright tree frog.   
  
“The variety in daemons implies…” Will began, hand hovering absentmindedly over the little Tupperware Jack had lent him to ensure Delilah’s comfort (a consideration he himself rarely made) for the duration of the visit.

 

“Killer either doesn’t care about the taboo,” Jack interrupts, “has a daemon big enough to do the work for him, or they’re going with him willingly.”   
  
“There’s something more,” Will says, “he’s… looking for something. Someone. One of these girls is special. There’s… there’s love here, Jack. Something like it.” He raised a finger to the picture of Elise Nichols and her stag daemon, eyes narrowed.

 

Delilah shifted in her tank of water and Will felt her soft voice prickle along the connection between their minds. He suppressed a shudder, and repeated what she had said aloud instead of replying to her.   
  
“Jack, the true victim, the goal in all this… she’s unsettled.”

 

* * *

 

 

Elise Nichols was found with antler velvet in her wounds, and the team wasn’t taking it very well. Beverly’s mynah combed his beak through her long hair, over and over, as she stared at Elise Nichols’ daemonless body. Zeller was more on edge than usual, as demonstrated by the way his lemur was scrabbling with Price’s little snake.   


Price extricated his snake from the conflict and let him weave between his fingers as he spoke. “It’s not the right kind. Elise’s daemon…”   
  
“Xanadu” the snake whispered.

 

“Xanadu was a Sambar deer. Native to Asia. The closest that the killer could find was a mule deer.”  
  
“He was trying to bring her daemon back to her. To heal her, make her whole again.” Will said softly, holding Delilah’s Tupperware a little closer, “trying to reunite them. This is an apology.”

 

Will scrubbed a hand over his face and exhaled sharply. Within moments, he had grabbed his daemon out of her makeshift tank and strode off with purpose, leaving the container sloshing on a table. Jack and Cassandra exchanged a look and cantered after him.   
  
When they caught up, Will was submerging his face in a filled sink. His daemon brushed her tiny feet against his stubble under the water- the most deliberate contact Jack had yet to see between them.

 

Cassandra reached out her thoughts to Jack’s along their connections. _We need to talk to Alana. They need help_.

 

* * *

  

Hannibal Lecter’s office was designed for the comfort of his patients, but filtered through the lens of his extravagant tastes. Dark wooden bookshelves perched on a high mezzanine; curious sculptures watched from corners. A water feature bubbled softly in one corner, with a cultivated tree arching over it. The tree held space for perching daemons, as well as decorative and delicate orchids and airplants.

 

Beneath the tree, Hannibal’s great feathered daemon watched placidly, blinking cold eyes.

 

During Jack and Cassandra’s office tour, the stork’s eyes followed them everywhere.   


When Hannibal secreted a scalpel into his sleeve, his daemon opened and closed her powerful bill and stepped, gently, from the water onto the tiled ledge. Cassandra turned to the stork then, walking over while her counterpart invited Hannibal’s input.   
  
“I didn’t catch your name,” Cassandra said, with the same brusque warmth that Jack so often affected.

 

A million things flickered across the connection between Hannibal and his daemon. Neither face betrayed any of it. The shoebill stork dipped her bill politely in greeting, and spoke; just her name.

 

“Laima.”

 

* * *

 

The presence of another large daemon in the room made Will hunch his shoulders even more than was usual for him as he scrutinized the shoebill stork and the carefully dressed man next to her. Between the human-sized bird and Cassandra, the room was considerably more crowded than usual. He fidgeted with the Tupperware container Delilah had once again been provided with as he elaborated on the nature of his thoughts and the ways he managed them.

 

“You don’t like introducing your daemon, do you?” Hannibal observed, smiling slightly, “that, and eye contact, correct?”   
  
Will bristled “Her name is Delilah and I don’t think that’s something anyone else particularly needs to know. It’s… a distracting social nicety. Brings me further into other people’s heads. As it stands, I have enough trouble as it is staying in my own.”

 

“I’d imagine so. Absorbing all the toxins while secreting something deadly of your own? Interesting creatures, amphibians.”   


Delilah laughed softly as Will bristled, “Whose profile are you working on? Not mine, I’d assume.”   
  
“I’m sorry, Will. Observation is such an ingrained part of our natures. Yours, as well as mine.” Hannibal inclined his head towards the shoebill next to him as she turned her head to survey Will with one sharp looking eye. “Eyes clear enough to see prey underwater.”   
  
Will’s smile was tight as he glanced between Hannibal and his daemon, but it was there.

 

* * *

 

 

Delilah was restless as Will and Hannibal sped towards the Hobbs residence. She paced in a plexiglass tank built into the center console, flicking her tail irately and swimming tight laps, using her webbed feet to pivot herself around the confines of the tank. She did not seek Will for comfort; he didn’t even place a hand on her tank. The rental car is a model attempting to be accommodating to all but the largest or most difficult daemons; the tank will prevent her from drying out but it isn’t as big as the one Will begrudgingly installed into their car when he realized the commute from Wolf Trap to Quantico was beyond what could be managed by a damp handkerchief and spite.

 

Hannibal sat in the passenger seat and could not reach to his daemon for comfort even if he had wanted to. The shoebill’s size confined her to the back seat, where she watched Will Graham’s frantic energy and shared with Hannibal the deep and central wonder of what would happen next.

 

The men and their daemons exited the rental car, the slamming of their doors reverberating in the quiet street. Will placed Delilah nervously on his shoulder, where she rested against his neck for stability more than for comfort. Hannibal followed behind, the predatory strides of Laima in his wake infused with an eager energy.   
  
Louise Hobbs’ daemon was spilling dust from the moment her husband shoved her out the door: by the time the woman was grasping at Will, her fingers reaching close enough to his daemon’s shoulder perch to cause them both to recoil, all that Will could observe was that it was a small quadruped. Hannibal approached the woman’s body as the daemon’s golden remains were picked up by a breeze. He paid her a cursory glance and turned to Will, who rammed the door furiously with his unoccupied shoulder and burst into the house like a man possessed.

 

Laima entered before Hannibal, tilting her head and savoring her avian senses. They paused on the threshold for three breaths, taking in the designed chaos around them, and then continued after Will, curiosity burning through their shared mind.

 

Will found him in the kitchen. His voice trembled only slightly as he called out the man’s name, but when he saw the threat, his blood went cold.

 

Delilah threw all of herself into their bond, jolting Will’s aim, blurring their senses so he could take out the threat, willing to bear the responsibility, willing to live afterwards as the other part of her soul poured bullets into Hobbs’ body.

 

While Will’s eyes locked with the dying man’s, Delilah scampered down his jacket, down his pant leg, and curled against the flapping sparrow form of Abigail Hobb’s daemon, providing an out of character comfort to them both even as the little bird strove towards Hobbs, keening distress. Seconds later, Will and then Hannibal were holding the pieces of Abigail’s throat together, were noting their location to backup and paramedics, were giving statements. Delilah remained, surrounded by blood which moistened her skin like water, until Will picked her up. He pressed her, fleetingly, against his heart before holding open his pocket.

 

* * *

 

 When Will opened the thin door to Abigail’s hospital room, Hannibal was sleeping lightly  in a chair beside Abigail’s bed. His hand rested on hers. Laima roosted at his feet, bill tucked into her back feathers, looking soft and rounded and much less serious than she did in motion. Delilah searched worriedly for Abigail’s daemon before spotting him, still bird shaped but larger, grey feathered with bars across his chest. His eyes were closed but he looked peaceful, neatly perched on Abigail’s stomach on top of her blanket.

 

 _She has to have been at least semi-conscious_ , Delilah whispered in their shared mind, _or else he wouldn’t have been able to change form_.

 

The relief they shared brought to light their common exhaustion, and Will staggered to the other chair in the room. It wasn’t long before he was dozing fitfully, flickering in and out of consciousness and nightmares.

 

Delilah made her way towards the table beside Abigail’s bed, peering up forlornly at the glass of water there, out of reach. She made several attempts to scale the side of the nightstand before a shadow loomed over her.

 

“Would you permit me to help?” Laima said, and her soft voice carried Hannibal’s cadence but this was the first time Delilah had heard it before. She herself hadn’t spoken aloud for days or weeks, and she found herself startled and pleased.   
  
Delilah nodded, gathering herself before she replied, “I would. I have no interest in drying out. The blood was bad enough.”

 

“I can only imagine” Laima said, a smile curling in her voice as she lowered her head and opened her predator’s bill. Delilah clambered gracelessly inside, thankful and inquisitive as Laima rose to her full height and bowed her head gently to meet the water glass. Delilah slipped inside, giving a soft sigh of relief. Laima tipped her bill in acknowledgement and returned to her place at Hannibal’s feet.

 

She brought to their shared dreams the taste of bitter poison on Delilah’s skin.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> A primer for folks who aren't super familiar with daemon fic: 
> 
> A daemon is an extension of their human. They function as the "other half" of mental dialogue. They take the forms of animals, and "settle" into a form that reflects their human's personality (in HDM canon this happens at puberty, in my story it happens in late adolescence/early adulthood because if my personality settled when I was 13 I would be a radically different person). There is etiquette surrounding daemons- they can touch/talk to/interact with other daemons and with their own human. The most important part of daemon etiquette is that a human touching someone else's daemon without consent is a huge taboo and breach of trust. Touching someone else's daemon is intensely intimate. (You can bet hannigram will be doing it at some point). 
> 
> There are different ways to write daemon fic. Some stories are fusions that incorporate the worldbuilding of His Dark Materials. This one is not: it is just Hannibal with daemons added. There are also different ways to decide on settled forms for daemons. Philip Pullman draws on mythology and surface level interpretation. I've tried to instead use analysis of animal behavior applied to human personalities, although I have taken some leeway for The Aesthetic. 
> 
> All in all, I really hope you've enjoyed this (and the easter eggs within it). I've worked hard on choosing names, forms, and plot points for this fic. 
> 
> Kudos and comments would make my day and probably prompt me to write more!


End file.
